+++
Jabbing all the buttons but
the lift had already started to ascend and
they were both on it, her hand cult-gripped in his
not love, but definitely fucking.
I pushed past random miners, a depressed radiation mage, industrial insurance reps, Kontolian peace reps, other reps, a flickering darts promo and leapt up the spiral stairs three at a time all the way to the upper level and
just as I was about to reach the hold lift button
the beast started to descend
Ryu’s hand around her arm, the slow creep to the side of her breast, and all I could do was run back down the stairs again.
He wouldn’t, he wouldn’t, he wouldn’t
slalomed through the neurons of whatever this mesh was inside my skull
but I knew he would
this version of Ryu, he definitely would
and when I jumped the last four steps down to the lift pad, they were gone, on foot, already two thirds of the way down a corridor, heading to the habitat ring,
heading to bed and
I ran as fast as my boots would go
almost colliding with a tentacle alien and another alien with green skin and another with a slightly ridged nose and another in robes who looked like an aristocratic grey lizard riffing on the Waugh meme and
even before I reached the corner, I knew it was no good
they were already in bed
on top of the covers
fingers inside each other and
I couldn’t bear seeing that right now, not in this scape, so I stopped sprinting and turned left through a door and slumped down by the wall, with the guy opposite telling me it was okay, he’d killed the other Keni, stabbed the wretch and buried his remains in a twelve foot hole by the docks in Kawasaki.
‘With a shovel?’ I asked, looking up and filtering in the tanned face of Yosh. Without a single second’s pause, I told him to go fuck himself.
‘Let’s get another coffee, talk about future plans,’ he continued, poking the call button seven times.
‘He’s with her right now, in bed.’
‘The way I see it, with your doppelganger gone…’
‘Probably talking about Anarchism…’
‘…we can start up the game exchange again.’
‘…between fucking.’
‘Just call up your brother and tell him to be more consistent with his scheduling.’
‘Yeah. He won’t even talk to me.’
‘Then we won’t have to do anything.’
‘Keeps running away.’
‘Just sit back and soak up the cash.’
‘With my Sadia doll.’
The waitress came over and, after a second of appearing Honduran, morphed into Lexi complete with Mpama-tone skin and Tenebrae t-shirt, and told Yosh she wouldn’t serve him.
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